CHAP. XLIV. Of the strangulation of the Womb.
THe strangulation of the womb, or that which cometh from the womb, is an interception or stopping of the liberty in breathing or taking winde, because that the womb, swollen or puffed up by reason of the access of gross vapours and humors that are contained therein, and also snatched as it were by a convulsive motion, by reason that the vessels and liga∣ments distended with fullness, are so carried upwards against the midriff and parts of the breast, that it maketh the breath to be short, and often as it a thing lay upon the breast and pres∣sed it.
Moreover, the womb swelleth, because there is contained or inclosed in it a certain substance, caused by the defluxion either of the seed or flowers, or of the womb or whites, or of some other humor, tumor, abscess, rotten apostume, or some ill juyce, putrifying or getting, or ingendring an ill quality, and resolved into gross vapours. These, as they affect sundry or divers places, infer divers and sundry accidents, as rumbling and noise in the belly; if it be in the guts, desire to vomit, after (with seldom vomiting) cometh weariness and loathing of meat, if it trouble the stomach. Choaking with strangulation, if it assail the breast and throat; swooning, if it vex the heart; madness, or else that which is contrary thereto, sound sleep or drowsiness, if it grieve the brain: all which oftentimes prove as malign as the biting of a mad dog, or equal the stinging or bitings of venemous beasts.
It hath been observed, that more greivous symptoms have proceeded from the corruption of the seed, then of the menstrual blood. For by how much every thing is more perfect and noble, while it is contained within the bounds of the integrity of its own nature, by so much it is the more grievous and perillous, when by corruption it hath once transgressed the laws thereof. But this kinde of accident doth very seldom grieve those women which have their menstrual flux well and orderly, and do use copulation familiarly; but very often those women that have not their menstrual flux as they should, and do want, and are destitute of husbands, especially if they be great eaters, and lead a solitary life. When the vessels and ligaments of the womb are swollen and distended as we said before, so much as is added to their latitude or breadth, so much is want∣ing in their length: and therefore it happeneth that the womb, being removed out of its seat, doth one while fall to the right side towards the liver, sometimes to the left towards the milt, some∣times upwards unto the midriff and stomach, sometimes downwards, and so forwards unto the blad∣der, whereof cometh an Ischury and strangury; or backwards, whereof cometh oppression of the straight gut, and suppression of the excrements, and the Tenesmus.
But although we acknowledge the womb to decline to those parts which we named, yet it is not by accident only, as when it is drawn by the proper and common ligaments and bands, when they are contracted or made shorter, being distended with fulness, but also of it self, as when it is forced or provoked through the grief of something contrary to nature that is contained therein: it wan∣dreth sometimes unto one side, and sometimes unto another part with a plain and evident natural motion, like unto the stomach which embraceth any thing that is gentle and milde, but avoideth any thing that is offensive and hurtfull; yet we deny that so great accidents may be stirred up by the falling of it alone unto this or that side; for then it might happen, that women that are great with childe, whose wombs are so distended by reason that the childe is great, that it doth press the midriff, might be troubled with a strangulation like unto this; but much rather by a venemous humor breathing out a malign and gross vapor, not only by the veins and arteries, but also by the pores that are invisible, which pollutes the faculties of the parts which it toucheth with its vene∣mous malignity and infection, and intercepts the functions thereof. Neither doth the variety of the parts receiving only, but also of the matter received, cause variety of accidents.
For some accidents come by suppression of the terms, others come by corruption of the seed; but if the matter be cold, it brinketh a drowsiness, being lifted up unto the brain, whereby the woman sinketh down as if she were astonished, and lieth without motion and sense or feeling, and the beating of the arteries, and the breathing are so small, that sometimes it is thought they are not at all, but that the woman is altogether dead. If it be more gross, it inferreth a convulsion; if it partipate of the nature of a gross melancholick humor, it bringeth such heaviness, fear and sor∣rowfulness, that the party that is vexed therewith shall think that she shall die presently, and cannot be brought out of her minde by any means or reason: if of a cholerick humor, it cau∣seth the madness called furor uterinus, and such a pratling that they speak all things that are to be concealed; and a giddiness of the head, by reason that the animal spirit is suddenly shaken by